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The Sundering Flood - Chapter 1
OF A RIVER CALLED THE SUNDERING FLOOD, AND OF THE FOLK THAT DWELT NEARBYIt is told that there was once a mighty river which ran south into the sea, and at the mouth thereof was a great and rich city, which had been builded and had waxed and thriven because of the great and most excellent haven which the river aforesaid made where it fell into the sea. And now it was like looking at a huge wood of barked and smoothened fir-trees when one saw the masts of the ships that lay in the said haven. But up in this river ran the flood of tide a long way, so that the biggest of dromonds and round-ships might fare up it, and oft they lay amid pleasant up-country places, with their yards all but touching the windows of the husbandman's stead, and their bowsprits thrusting forth amongst the middens, and the routing swine, and querulous hens. And the uneasy lads and lasses sitting at high-mass of the Sunday in the grey church would see the tall masts amidst the painted saints of the aisle windows, and their minds would wander from the mass-hackled priest and the words and the gestures of him, and see visions of far countries and outlandish folk, and some would be heart-smitten with that desire of wandering and looking on new things which so oft the sea-beat board and the wind-strained pine bear with them to the dwellings of the stay-at-homes: and to some it seemed as if, when they went from out the church, they should fall in with St. Thomas of India stepping over the gangway, and come to visit their uplandish Christmas and the Yule-feast of the field-abiders of midwinter frost. And moreover, when the tide failed, and there was no longer a flood to bear the sea-going keels up-stream (and that was hard on an hundred of miles from the sea), yet was this great river a noble and wide-spreading water, and the downlong stream thereof not so heavy nor so fierce but that the barges and lesser keels might well spread their sails when the south-west blew, and fare on without beating; or if the wind were fouler for them, they that were loth to reach from shore to shore might be tracked up by the draught of horses and bullocks, and bear the wares of the merchants to many a cheaping. Other rivers moreover not a few fell into this main flood, and of the some were no lesser than the Thames is at Abingdon, where I, who gathered this tale, dwell in the House of the Black Canons; blessed be St. William, and St. Richard, and the Holy Austin our candle in the dark! Yea and some were even bigger, so that the land was well furnished both of fisheries and water-ways. Now the name of this river was the Sundering Flood, and the city at the mouth thereof was called the City of the Sundering Flood. And it is no wonder, considering all that I have told concerning the wares and chaffer that it bore up-country, though the folk of the City and its lands (and the city-folk in special) knew no cause for this name. Nay, oft they jested and gibed and gabbed, for they loved their river much and were proud of it; wherefore they said it was no sunderer but a uniter; that it joined land to land and shore to shore; that it had peopled the wilderness and made the waste places blossom, and that no highway for wheels and beasts in all the land was so full of blessings and joys as was their own wet Highway of the Flood. Nevertheless, as meseemeth that no name is given to any town or mountain or river causeless, but that men are moved to name all steads for a remembrance of deeds that have been done and tidings that have befallen, or some due cause, even so might it well be with the Sundering Flood, and whereas also I wot something of that cause I shall now presently show you the same. For ye must know that all this welfare of the said mighty river was during that while that it flowed through the plain country anigh the city, or the fertile pastures and acres of hill and dale and down further to the north. But one who should follow it up further and further would reach at last the place where it came forth from the mountains. There, though it be far smaller than lower down, yet is it still a mighty great water, and it is then well two hundred miles from the main sea. Now from the mountains it cometh in three great forces, and many smaller ones, and perilous and awful it is to behold; for betwixt those forces it filleth all the mountain ghyll, and there is no foothold for man, nay for goat, save at a hundred foot or more above the water, and that evil and perilous; and is the running of a winter millstream to the beetles and shrew-mice that haunt the greensward beside it, so is the running of that flood to the sons of Adam and the beasts that serve them: and none has been so bold as to strive to cast a bridge across it. But when ye have journeyed with much toil and no little peril over the mountain-necks (for by the gorge of the river, as aforesaid, no man may go) and have come out of the mountains once more, then again ye have the flood before you, cleaving a great waste of rocks mingled with sand, where groweth neither tree nor bush nor grass; and now the flood floweth wide and shallow but swift, so that no words may tell of its swiftness, and on either side the water are great wastes of tumbled stones that the spates have borne down from the higher ground. And ye shall know that from this place upward to its very wells in the higher mountains, the flood decreaseth not much in body or might, though it be wider or narrower as it is shallower or deeper, for nought but mere trickles of water fall into it in the space of this sandy waste, and what feeding it hath is from the bents and hills on either side as you wend toward the mountains to the north, where, as aforesaid, are its chiefest wells. Now when ye have journeyed over this waste for some sixty miles, the land begins to better, and there is grass again, yet no trees, and it rises into bents, which go back on each side, east and west, from the Flood, and the said bents are grass also up to the tops, where they are crested with sheer rocks black of colour. As for the Flood itself, it is now gathered into straiter compass, and is deep, and exceeding strong; high banks it hath on either side thereof of twenty foot and upward of black rock going down sheer to the water; and thus it is for a long way, save that the banks be higher and higher as the great valley of the river rises toward the northern mountains. But as it rises the land betters yet, and is well grassed, and in divers nooks and crannies groweth small wood of birch and whiles of quicken tree; but ever the best of the grass waxeth nigh unto the lips of the Sundering Flood, where it rises a little from the Dale to the water; and what little acre-land there is, and it is but little, is up on knolls that lie nearer to the bent, and be turned somewhat southward; or on the east side of the Flood (which runneth here nigh due north to south), on the bent-side itself, where, as it windeth and turneth, certain slopes lie turned to southwest. And in these places be a few garths, fenced against the deer, wherein grow rye, and some little barley whereof to make malt for beer and ale, whereas the folk of this high-up windy valley may have no comfort of wine. And it is to be said that ever is that land better and the getting more on the east side of the Sundering Flood than on the west. As to the folk of this land, they are but few even now, and belike were fewer yet in the time of my tale. There was no great man amongst them, neither King, nor Earl, nor Alderman, and it had been hard living for a strong-thief in the Dale. Yet folk there were both on the east side and the west of the Flood. On neither side were they utterly cut off from the world outside the Dale; for though it were toilsome, it was not perilous to climb the bents and so wend over the necks east and west, where some forty miles from the west bank and fifty from the east you might come down into a valley fairly well peopled, wherein were two or three cheaping-towns: and to these towns the dalesmen had some resort, that they might sell such of their wool as they needed not to weave for themselves, and other small chaffer, so that they might buy wrought wares such as cutlery and pots, and above all boards and timber, whereof they had nought at home. But this you must wot and understand, that howsoever the Sundering Flood might be misnamed down below, up in the Dale and down away to the southern mountains it was such that better named it might not be, and that nought might cross its waters undrowned save the fowl flying. Nay, and if one went up-stream to where it welled forth from the great mountains, he were no nearer to passing from one side to the other, for there would be nought before him but a wall of sheer rock, and above that rent and tumbled crags, the safe strong-houses of erne and osprey and gerfalcon. Wherefore all the dealings which the folk on the east Dale and the west might have with each other was but shouting and crying across the swirling and gurgling eddies of the black water, which themselves the while seemed to be talking together in some dread and unknown tongue. True it is that on certain feast days and above all on Midsummer night, the folk would pluck up a heart, and gather together as gaily clad as might be where the Flood was the narrowest (save at one place, whereof more hereafter), and there on each side would trundle the fire-wheel, and do other Midsummer games, and make music of string-play and horns, and sing songs of old time and drink to each other, and depart at last to their own homes blessing each other. But never might any man on the east touch the hand of any on the west, save it were that by some strange wandering from the cheaping-towns aforesaid they might meet at last, far and far off from the Dale of the Sundering Flood. |


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M. H. Abrams's enormously influential The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (1953) provides a valuable way into the problem of defining Victorianism in art and literature. Abrams begins his argument by pointing out that the once near-universal tendency to discuss art in terms of author and artist arrived on the scene quite late in the 2,500 year-old history of aesthetics and critical theory:
To pose and answer aesthetic questions in terms of the relation of art to the artist, rather than to external nature, or to the audience, or to the internal requirements of the work itself, was the characteristic tendency of modern criticism up to a few decades ago, and it continued to be the propensity of a great many — perhaps the majority — of critics today. This point of view is very young when measured against the twenty-five-hundred-year history of Western theory of art, for its emergence as a comprehensive approach to art shared by a large number of critics, dates back not much more than a century and a half. [3]
Before he can demonstrate the "momentous consequences for the identification, the analysis, the evaluation, and the writing of poetry" (3) of these comparatively recent ways of looking at literature and art, Abrams explains that all discussions of them discuss four elements — text or work, author, reality or nature, and audience — but define themselves by which one of the four they emphasize.
Four elements in the total situation of a work of art are discriminated and made salient, by one or another synonym, in almost all theories which aim to be comprehensive. First, there is the work, the artistic product itself. And since this is a human product, an artifact, the second common element is the artificer, the artist. Third, the work is taken to have a subject which, directly or indirectly, is derived from existing things — to be about, or signify, or reflect something which either is, or bears some relation to, an objective state of affairs. This third element, whether held to consist of people and actions, ideas and feelings, material things and events, or super-sensible essences, has frequently been denoted by that-word-of-all-work, "nature;" but let us use the more neutral and comprehensive term, universe, instead. For the final element we have the audience: the listeners, spectators, or readers to whom the work is addressed, or to whom, at any rate, it becomes available. [6]
Having thus set forth the framework of the argument to follow, Abrams proceeds, beginning with the relation of the work (or text) to nature (or universe), to explain the implications of each approach. Abrams labels mimetic those explanations of "the work of art as essentially an imitation of aspects of the universe" (8), and he discusses the quite different forms it takes in the writings of Plato and Aristotle. A central part of all such mimetic theories — and one which probably surprises most modern readers — lies in their conception of the roles of artist and poet, who do not have what Abrams terms "a determinative function;" that is, although poets are "indispensable," their "personal faculties, feelings, or desires are not called upon to explain the subject matter or form of a poem" (11). No one cares, in other words, if the poet is sincere or original: only accuracy, only truthfulness count.
The next category, the approach to art that emphasizes its relation to audience, Abrams labels pragmatic, "since it looks at the work of art chiefly as a means to an end, an instrument for getting something done, and tends to judge its value according to its success in achieving that aim. . . . The central tendency of the pragmatic critic is to conceive a poem as something made in order to effect certain responses in its readers" (15). This essentially rhetorical approach, which characterizes critical theory from the Renaissance through much of the eighteenth century, leads in turn to an emphasis upon distinct genres, or artistic and literary kinds, each with its own specific techniques and ends. Tragedy, for example, must have noble characters, elevated diction, and employ certain poetic devices, such as elaborate metaphor, to produce pity and fear. Pastoral, lyric, satire, burlesque all have their own rules, for this kind of critical position sees literary genres or kinds as forms of technology that can or should produce specific definable effects in the reader. Once again, no one cares if the poet is sincere or original: only effect and effectiveness, and skill in following the rules, counts.
With romantic or expressive theories come all the criteria with which we are familiar at last: spontaneity, sincerity, originality, intensity . . . alienation. "Poetry is the overflow, utterance, or projection of the thought and feelings of the poet; or else (in the chief variant formulation) poetry is defined in terms of the imaginative process which modified and synthesizes the images, thought, and feelings of the poet. . . . A work of art is essentially the internal made external" (21-22) or expressed. I always think of this approach as reactive: the artist-poet confronts nature or society, has a reaction that takes the form of a powerful emotional and imaginative experience that he or she later expresses. Kinds, literary or painterly genres, even the audience no longer appears central, and in fact the subjective nature of the artist-poet's experience almost guarantees several things. First, the resulting text or picture will appear to the audience as new, novel, and possibly strange or even weird. Second, the creator will always be ahead of the audience. Third, as Wordsworth put it, truly great art and literature advance so beyond the audience's expectations that it must create the taste by which it is to be enjoyed. And fourth, manifestos and prefaces, critics and interpretative criticism, become centrally important, as does the notion of an avante garde, since someone has to explain and defend art and artist to audience.
Leaving aside the fourth category — objective theories ranging from Art for Art's Sake to New Criticism that concentrate upon the work itself, we can turn to the question of Victorianism in literature and the arts. For all the great poetry and art produced by the romantic generations, many nineteenth-century readers and writers believed their approach tended towards egotism and excessive subjectivity. Nonetheless, at the same time that Thomas Carlyle proclaimed that his contemporaries should close their Byron and open their Goethe (which many of his readers reconfigured as "close Byron and read Carlyle"), they had passed a great divide — one of the central ones in Western intellectual and social history — and could not return to the elegant wit and scathing satire of the Augustans. As E. D. H. Johnson pointed out more than half a century ago in The Alien Vision of Victorian Poetry (1952), the Victorian project involved finding literary and artistic means of bridging a series of what they understood to be binary oppositions: self and society, personal and political, subjective and objective. Above all, as Carlyle managed to do in Sartor Resartus, Tennyson in In Memoriam, and Dickens in Great Expectations, they had to find public uses for very private experiences without either becoming egotistical or makes themselves vulnerable. Thus, the necessity of developing the dramatic monologue and new forms of both autobiography and autobiographical fictions. In other words, the Victorians had to find a way to create a synthesis of what Abrams calls pragmatic and expressive forms of art. Characteristically Victorian literature therefore attempts bravely, and often successfully, to combine the individuality, originality, intensity, and above all sincerity of Wordsworth and Keats with publicly accessibility and social relevance of Pope and Johnson.
Abrams, M. H. The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition. NY: Oxford UP, 1953.
Last modified 10 November 2006

subset: commoncrawl


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These creamy little lemon custards are like a drop of delicious sunshine in a cup – the perfect way to end a meal on a sweet note without feeling like you've overindulged.
Layering the ingredients in 4oz wide-mouth mason jars tied with pieces of dainty gingham ribbon add to the charm of this delightful dessert. It also makes it the perfect showpiece for summertime brunches, bridal and baby showers, or other fun occasions!
- 6 large egg yolks, room temperature (pastured eggs are best)
- 1/2 cup pure honey (I prefer sage honey due to its mild flavor)
- 1/3 cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice (about 2 Meyer lemons)
- 2 tbsp filtered water
- 1 tsp lemon zest
- 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup butter, cold, cut into pieces
- 2 cups fresh whipped cream
- Your favorite fresh organic berries (raspberries are especially delicious with lemon!)
- In a double boiler, or in a heat-safe glass bowl resting above a pot of gently simmering (not boiling) water, whisk together the egg yolks, honey, lemon juice, water, lemon zest and vanilla until well blended.
- Slowly add the butter, 2-3 pieces at a time, while constantly whisking. Add more pieces as the previous ones melt.
- After all of the butter pieces are melted and incorporated, cook for an additional 15-18 minutes, stirring just occasionally, until it thickens like a thin pudding. Then, place the lemon curd in the refrigerator to cool completely (about 2-3 hours). (Please note: You can make the lemon curd one day in advance for easier final prep.)
- Once lemon curd is chilled, use a large rubber spatula to gentle fold in 1 3/4 cups of fresh whipped cream to create a creamy lemon custard. Reserve the remaining 1/4 cup of whipped cream for garnish.
- There are two fun options for serving: Either layer the bottom of 4oz serving cups (or ramekins) with fresh berries and top with the lemon custard, followed by a dollop of fresh whipped cream ...
- Or create beautiful little lemon berry trifles by layering the ingredients in 4oz wide-mouth mason jars tied with pieces of dainty gingham ribbon. Absolutely delightful!
P.S. If you're on Pinterest, I'd love to be pin-pals with you! It's so much fun sharing healthy delicious recipes! Blessings, Kelly
This recipe was shared at: Homestead Barn Hop, Make Your Own Monday, Better Mom Mondays, Monday Mania, Made from Scratch Mondays, I Gotta Try That, Modest Mondays, Welcome Home Mondays, Fat Tuesdays, Titus 2sdays, Titus Tuesdays Link-Up, Domestically Divine, Living Well Wednesdays, Allergy-Free Wednesdays, Gluten-Free Wednesdays, Homemaking Link-Up, Creative at Home Wednesdays,


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Since our 'ol buddy [Caleb] left Hackaday for EE Times, he's been very busy. One of his latest projects is doing Antique Electronics Autopsies. This time around it's a 1953 Heathkit Grid Dip Meter. It's a beautiful piece of engineering with Point to Point wiring and metal gears.
We love microcontroller breakout boards, and so does [Tim] apparently. He built a breadboard friendly breakout for the NXP LPC812. It's an ARM Cortex M0+ with 16kb of Flash and 4kb of SRAM. The entire breakout board is smaller than the through-hole DIP LPC1114. When are we going to see these on Tindie, [Tim]? Here's the Git with the board files. You can also pick up a board at OSH Park – $3.30 for a set of three.
What do you do when you have the perfect idea for a Kickstarter, but don't have the funds for the perfect sales pitch? The obvious solution is to start an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds for your Kickstarter. Unfortunately, this campaign has already been successfully funded, so it's already too late to get in on the ground floor. Relevant xkcd.
We've seen this DIY cell phone before but now it's just about ready for production. [David] at the MIT Media Lab has been working on a bare-bones, ATMega & GSM module phone for a while now, and now you can grab the firmware and board files. Make your own cell phone!
Here comes Hanukkah, so drink your gin and tonica. Here's a pedal powered menorahica so put on your yarmulke, it's time to celebrate Hanukkah.


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If you desperately need an escape from reality, and you will be traveling in the vicinity of New York City, then a visit to the New York Renaissance Faire could be the perfect fantasy tonic for you.
Located in Sterling Forest, Tuxedo (about an hour's drive out of New York City), the Faire is one of those tourist-type memories that only get rosier with time.
Don't think the fantasy aspect of the Faire is childish; it is not. This is adult entertainment, but kids will have a blast, too.
Read on . . .


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The mother of all insider trades was pulled off in 1815, when London financier Nathan Rothschild led British investors to believe that the Duke of Wellington had lost to Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo.
In a matter of hours, British government bond prices plummeted. Rothschild, who had advance information, then swiftly bought up the entire market in government bonds, acquiring a dominant holding in England's debt for pennies on the pound. (Read more on the subject HERE).
Over the course of the nineteenth century, N. M. Rothschild would become the biggest bank in the world, and the five brothers would come to control most of the foreign-loan business of Europe.
"Let me issue and control a nation's money," Rothschild boasted in 1838, "and I care not who writes its laws."
In the United States a century later, John Pierpont Morgan again used rumor and innuendo to create a panic that would change the course of history.
The panic of 1907 was triggered by rumors that two major banks were about to become insolvent. Later evidence pointed to the House of Morgan as the source of the rumors.
The public, believing the rumors, proceeded to make them come true by staging a run on the banks. Morgan then nobly stepped in to avert the panic by importing $100 million in gold from his European sources.
The public thus became convinced that the country needed a central banking system to stop future panics, overcoming strong congressional opposition to any bill allowing the nation's money to be issued by a private central bank controlled by Wall Street; and the Federal Reserve Act was passed in 1913.
Morgan created the conditions for the Act's passage, but it was Paul Warburg who pulled it off. An immigrant from Germany, Warburg was a partner of Kuhn, Loeb, the Rothschilds' main American banking operation since the Civil War.
Elisha Garrison, an agent of Brown Brothers bankers, wrote in his 1931 book Roosevelt, Wilson and the Federal Reserve Law that "Paul Warburg is the man who got the Federal Reserve Act together after the Aldrich Plan aroused such nationwide resentment and opposition. The mastermind of both plans was Baron Alfred Rothschild of London."
Morgan, too, is now widely believed to have been Rothschild's agent in the United States. 1
Robert Owens, a co-author of the Federal Reserve Act, later testified before Congress that the banking industry had conspired to create a series of financial panics in order to rouse the people to demand "reforms" that served the interests of the financiers.
A century later, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (now one of the two largest banks in the United States) may have pulled this ruse off again, again changing the course of history.
"Remember Friday March 14, 2008," wrote Martin Wolf in The Financial Times; "it was the day the dream of global free-market capitalism died."
The Rumors that Sank Bear Stearns
Mergers, buyouts and leveraged acquisitions have been the modus operandi of the Morgan empire ever since John Pierpont Morgan took over Carnegie's steel mills to form U.S. Steel in 1901.
The elder Morgan is said to have hated competition, the hallmark of "free-market capitalism."
He did not compete, he bought; and he bought with money created by his own bank, using the leveraged system perfected by the Rothschild bankers known as "fractional reserve" lending.
On March 16, 2008, this long tradition of takeovers and acquisitions culminated in JPMorgan's buyout of rival investment bank Bear Stearns with a $55 billion loan from the Federal Reserve.
Although called "federal," the U.S. central bank is privately owned by a consortium of banks, and it was set up to protect their interests.2
The secret weekend purchase of Bear Stearns with a Federal Reserve loan was precipitated by a run on Bear's stock allegedly triggered by rumors of its insolvency.
An article in The Wall Street Journal on March 15, 2008 cast JPMorgan as Bear's "rescuer":
"The role of rescuer has long been part of J.P. Morgan's history. In what's known as the Panic of 1907, a semi-retired J. Pierpont Morgan helped stave off a national financial crisis when he helped to shore up a number of banks that had seen a run on their deposits."
That was one interpretation of events, but a later paragraph was probably closer to the facts:
"J.P. Morgan has been on the prowl for acquisitions. . . Bear's assets could be too good, and too cheap, to turn down."3
The "rescuer" was not actually JPMorgan but was the Federal Reserve, the "bankers' bank" set up by J. Pierpont Morgan to backstop bank runs; and the party "rescued" was not Bear Stearns, which wound up being eaten alive.
The Federal Reserve (or "Fed") lent $25 billion to Bear Stearns and another $30 billion to JPMorgan, a total of $55 billion that all found its way into JPMorgan's coffers.
It was a very good deal for JPMorgan and a very bad deal for Bear's shareholders, who saw their stock drop from a high of $156 to a low of $2 a share.
Thirty percent of the company's stock was held by the employees, and another big chunk was held by the pension funds of teachers and other public servants.
The share price was later raised to $10 a share in response to shareholder outrage and threats of lawsuits, but it was still a very "hostile" takeover, one in which the shareholders had no vote.
The deal was also a very bad one for U.S. taxpayers, who are on the hook for the loan.
Although the Fed is privately owned, the money it lends is taxpayer money, and it is the taxpayers who are taking the risk that the loan won't be repaid.
The loan for the buyout was backed by Bear Stearns assets valued at $55 billion; and of this sum, $29 billion was non-recourse to JPMorgan, meaning that if the assets weren't worth their stated valuation, the Fed could not go after JPMorgan for the balance.
The Fed could at best get its money back with interest; and at worst, it could lose between $25 billion and $40 billion.4 In other words, JPMorgan got the money ($55 billion) and the taxpayers got the risk (up to $40 billion), a ruse called the privatization of profit and socialization of risk.
Why did the Fed not just make the $55 billion loan to Bear Stearns directly? The bank would have been saved, and the Fed and the taxpayers would have gotten a much better deal, since Bear Stearns could have been required to guaranty the full loan.
The Highly Suspicious Out-of-the-Money Puts
That was one of many questions raised by John Olagues, an authority on stock options, in a March 23 article boldly titled "Bear Stearns Buy-out… 100% Fraud."
Olagues maintains that the Bear Stearns collapse was artificially created to allow JPMorgan to be paid $55 billion of taxpayer money to cover its own insolvency and acquire its rival Bear Stearns, while at the same time allowing insiders to take large "short" positions in Bear Stearns stock and collect massive profits.
For evidence, Olagues points to a very suspicious series of events, which will be detailed here after some definitions for anyone not familiar with stock options:
A put is an option to sell a stock at an agreed-upon price, called the strike price or exercise price, at any time up to an agreed-upon date.
The option is priced and bought that day based upon the current stock price, on the presumption that the stock will decline in value. If the stock's price falls below the strike price, the option is "in the money" and the trader has made a profit.
Now here's the evidence:
On March 10, 2008, Bear Stearns stock dropped to $70 a share — a recent low, but not the first time the stock had reached that level in 2008, having also traded there eight weeks earlier.
On or before March 10, 2008, requests were made to the Options Exchanges to open a new April series of puts with exercise prices of 20 and 22.5 and a new March series with an exercise price of 25.
The March series had only eight days left to expiration, meaning the stock would have to drop by an unlikely $45 a share in eight days for the put-buyers to score.
It was a very risky bet, unless the traders knew something the market didn't; and they evidently thought they did, because after the series opened on March 11, 2008, purchases were made of massive volumes of puts controlling millions of shares.
On or before March 13, 2008, another request was made of the Options Exchanges to open additional March and April put series with very low exercise prices, although the March put options would have just five days of trading to expiration.
Again the exchanges accommodated the requests and massive amounts of puts were bought.
Olagues contends that there is only one plausible explanation for "anyone in his right mind to buy puts with five days of life remaining with strike prices far below the market price": the deal must have already been arranged by March 10 or before.
These facts were in sharp contrast to the story told by officials who testified at congressional hearings on April 4. All witnesses agreed that false rumors had undermined confidence in Bear Stearns, making the company crash despite adequate liquidity just days before.
On March 10, 2008, Reuters was citing Bear Stearns sources saying there was no liquidity crisis and no truth to the speculation of liquidity problems.
On March 11, the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission himself expressed confidence in its "capital cushion." Even "mad" TV investment guru Jim Cramer was proclaiming that all was well and the viewers should hold on. On March 12, official assurances continued.
Olagues writes:
"The fact that the requests were made on March 10 or earlier that those new series be opened and those requests were accommodated together with the subsequent massive open positions in those newly opened series is conclusive proof that there were some who knew about the collapse in advance…
This was no case of a sudden development on the 13 or 14th, where things changed dramatically making it such that they needed a bail-out immediately. The collapse was anticipated and prepared for….
"Apparently it is claimed that some people have the ability to start false rumors about Bear Stearns' and other banks' liquidity, which then starts a 'run on the bank.'
These rumor mongers allegedly were able to influence companies like Goldman Sachs to terminate doing business with Bear Stearns, notwithstanding that Goldman et al. believed that Bear Stearns balance sheet was in good shape…
The idea that rumors caused a 'run on the bank' at Bear Stearns is 100% ridiculous. Perhaps that's the reason why every witness was so guarded and hesitant and looked so mighty strained in answering questions….
"To prove the case of illegal insider trading, all the Feds have to do is ask a few questions of the persons who bought puts on Bear Stearns or shorted stock during the week before March 17, 2008 and before. All the records are easily available. If they bought puts or shorted stock, just ask them why."5
Suspicions Mount
Other commentators point to other issues that might be probed by investigators. Chris Cook, a British consultant and the former Compliance Director for the International Petroleum Exchange, wrote in an April 24 blog:
"As a former regulator myself, I would be crawling all over these trades… One question that occurs to me is who actually sold these Put Options? And why aren't they creating merry hell about the losses? Where is Spitzer when we need him?"6
In an April 23 article in LeMetropoleCafe.com, Rob Kirby agreed with Olagues that it was not Bear Stearns but JPMorgan that was bankrupt and needed to be "recapitalized" with massive loans from the Federal Reserve.
Kirby pointed to the huge losses from derivatives (bets on the future price of assets) carried on JPMorgan's books:
"… J.P. Morgan's derivatives book is 2-3 times bigger than Citibank's – and it was derivatives that caused losses of more than 30 billion at Citibank…
So, it only made common sense that J.P. Morgan had to be a little more than 'knee deep' in the same stuff that Citibank was – but how do you tell the market that a bank – any bank – needs to be recapitalized to the tune of 50 – 80 billion?"7
Kirby wrote in an April 30 article:
"According to the NYSE there are only 240 million shares of Bear outstanding… [Yet] 188 million traded on Mar. 14 alone? Doesn't this strike you as being odd?…
What percentage of the firm was owned by insiders that categorically did not sell their shares?… Bear Stearns employees held 30 % of the company's stock… 30 % of 240 million is 72 million.
If you subtract 72 from 240 you end up with approximately 170 million. Don't you think it's a stretch to believe that 186+ million real shares traded on Friday Mar. 14?
Or do you believe that rank-and-file Bear employees, worried about their jobs, were pitching their stocks on the Friday before the company collapsed knowing their company was toast?
But that would be insider trading – wouldn't it? No bloody wonder the SEC does not want to probe J.P. Morgan's 'rescue' of Bear Stearns…"8
If real shares weren't trading, someone must have been engaging in "naked" short selling – selling stock short without first borrowing the shares or ensuring that the shares could be borrowed.
Short selling, a technique used by investors to try to profit from the falling price of a stock, involves borrowing a stock from a broker and selling it, with the understanding that the stock must later be bought back and returned to the broker.
Naked short selling is normally illegal; but in the interest of "liquid markets," a truck-sized loophole exists for "market makers" (those people who match buyers with sellers, set the price, and follow through with the trade).
Even market makers, however, are supposed to cover within three days by actually coming up with the stock; and where would they have gotten enough Bear Stearns stock to cover 75% of the company's outstanding shares?
In any case, naked short selling is illegal if the intent is to drive down a stock's share price; and that was certainly the result here.9
On May 10, 2008, in weekly market commentary on FinancialSense.com, Jim Puplava observed that naked short selling has become so pervasive that the number of shares sold "short" far exceeds the shares actually issued by the underlying companies.
Yet regulators are turning a blind eye, perhaps because the situation has now gotten so far out of hand that it can't be corrected without major stock upheaval.
He noted that naked short selling is basically the counterfeiting of stock, and that it has reached epidemic proportions since the "uptick" rule was revoked last summer to help the floundering hedge funds.
The uptick rule allowed short selling only if the stock price were going up, preventing a cascade of short sales that would take the stock price much lower.
But that brake on manipulation has been eliminated by the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), leaving the market in unregulated chaos.
Eliot Spitzer has also been eliminated from the scene, and it may be for similar reasons. Greg Palast suggested in a March 14 article that the "sin" of the former New York governor may have been something more serious than prostitution.
Spitzer made the mistake of getting in the way of a $200 billion windfall from the Federal Reserve to the banks, guaranteeing the mortgage-backed junk bonds of the same banking predators responsible for the subprime debacle.
While the Federal Reserve was trying to bail the banks out, Spitzer was trying to regulate them, bringing suit on behalf of consumers.10
But he was swiftly exposed and deposed; and the Treasury has now broached a new plan that would prevent such disruptions in the future.
Like the Panic of 1907 that justified a "bankers' bank" to prevent future runs, the collapse of Bear Stearns has been used to justify a proposal giving vast new powers to the Federal Reserve to promote "financial market stability."
The plan was unveiled by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, former head of Goldman Sachs, two weeks after Bear Stearns fell.
It would "consolidate" the state regulators (who work for the fifty states) and the SEC (which works for the U.S. government) under the Federal Reserve (which works for the banks). Paulson conceded that the result would not be to increase regulation but to actually take away authority from state regulators and the SEC.
All regulation would be subsumed under the Federal Reserve, the bank-owned entity set up by J. Pierpont Morgan in 1913 specifically to preserve the banks' own interests.
On April 29, a former top Federal Reserve official told The Wall Street Journal that by offering $30 billion in financing to JPMorgan for Bear's assets, the Fed had "eliminated forever the possibility [that it] could serve as an honest broker."
Vincent Reinhart, formerly the Fed's director of monetary affairs and the secretary of its policy-making panel, said the Fed's bailout of Bear Stearns would come to be viewed as the "worst policy mistake in a generation."
He noted that there were other viable options, such as looking for other suitors or removing some assets from Bear's portfolio, which had not been pursued by the Federal Reserve.11
Jim Puplava maintains that naked short selling has now become so pervasive that if the hedge funds were pressed to come in and cover their naked short positions, "they would actually trigger another financial crisis."
The Fed and the SEC may be looking the other way on this widespread stock counterfeiting scheme because "if they did unravel it, everything really would unravel."
Evidently "promoting market stability" means that whistle-blowers and the SEC must be silenced so that a grossly illegal situation can continue, since the crime is so pervasive that to expose it and prosecute the criminals would unravel the whole financial system.
As Nathan Rothschild observed in 1838, when the issuance and control of a nation's money are in private hands, the laws and the people who make them become irrelevant.
By Ellen Brown – Author, Speaker, Radio Host, via Global Research / Footnotes:
1 For many references, see E. Brown, Web of Debt (2008); and E. Brown, "Dollar Deception: How Banks Secretly Create Money," webofdebt.com/articles (July 3, 2007).
2 Lewis v. United States, 680 F.2d 1239 (1982); Edward Flaherty, "Myth #5: The Federal Reserve Is Owned and Controlled by Foreigners," www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/3616/flaherty5.html.
3 Kate Kelly, et al., "Fed Races to Rescue Bear Stearns in Bid to Steady Financial System," The Wall Street Journal (March 15, 2008).
4 John Olagues, "Bear Stearns Buy-Out . . .100% Fraud," optionsforemployees/articles.com (March 23, 2008).
5 Ibid.
6 Chris Cook, "LQD: Bear-faced Robbery?", eurotrib.com (April 24, 2008).
7 Rob Kirby, "A National Disaster," lemetropolecafe.com (April 23, 2008).
8 Rob Kirby, "Further Thoughts on Bear Stearns," lemetropolecafe.com (April 30, 2008).
9 "Naked Short Selling," Wikipedia.
10 Greg Palast, "Eliot's Mess" gregpalast.com (March 14, 2008).
11 Reuters, "Ex-Fed Official Criticizes Bear Stearns Rescue," citing Wall Street Journal (April 29, 2008).


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Jack Osbourne on MS: 'I Do Believe There Will be a Solution in Sight in My Lifetime'
Since Jack Osbourne revealed his recent diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, he has become very outspoken about the disease, what it means and how it is already affecting his life.
"I've only known about it for five weeks so I'm not an expert yet, but it layman's terms it's kind of the arthritis of the nervous system,' he said in a recent interview on 'The Talk,' the show his mother, Sharon, co-hosts. Jack has had various symptoms over the last few years, but just recently got the diagnosis.
"I guess I've been having symptoms for the last three or four years, but I didn't realize it," he said, "about two years ago, my legs went numb for two months and I just thought I had pinched a nerve."
"One minute you can be fine,and the next I went blind in my right eye," adds the son of legendary rocker Ozzy Osbourne, "It's a completely unpredictable disease. "Ultimately, that's the toughest thing with this disease."
Part of the mystery of MS is the way it can affect any number of people in a variety of ways. While talking with Piers Morgan, Jack said. "If you look at the symptoms of MS, it is so random, it's really quite remarkable how someone figured out that's actually related to one thing."
MS attacks the central nervous system in various ways, resulting in different symptoms for different people. Some are minor, others are devastating. There are a handful of drugs out there to help keep the symptoms in check, but at this point, there is no cure. "I've been told by all my doctors that if you are going to get MS, now is the best time to have it." he told Morgan. "There are, I think, two or three new drugs coming out within the next six months.' optimistically adding "I do believe there will be a solution in sight in my lifetime."
Jack has a new TV show called 'Haunted Highway' that debuts on the SyFy Network July 3.
Watch Jack Osbourne Talk About MS on 'The Talk'


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Photo: farukahmet via Creative CommonsLet's say you trundle a bunch of enormous industrial equipment into North America's oldest mountains (an intact temperate ecosystem boasting rich biodiversity, including a number of endangered species), clear-cut the forests, blow millions of tons off the top of the mountains, dump the rubble into the pristine streams below, and carry out the coal you find on enormous trucks, at high speeds, on narrow roads, through some of America's oldest communities.
Think that would cause any ecological or human damage? Hmm …
It might seem obvious, but as the media will tell you, "opinions on shape of earth differ," so it's helpful that a group of scientists has come along to assess the existing body of research on the subject.
And what does Science say? Yes, blowing up mountains causes environmental and health damage! Who woulda thunk it? In fact, the evidence is so clear that the scientists have taken the extraordinary further step of calling for an immediate moratorium on mountaintop removal mining permits.
The information is contained in a new paper being published today in the journal Science: "Mountaintop Mining Consequences." From the press release:
Based on a comprehensive analysis of the latest scientific findings and new data, a group of the nation's leading environmental scientists are calling on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to stay all new mountaintop mining permits. In the January 8 edition of the journal Science, they argue that peer-reviewed research unequivocally documents irreversible environmental impacts from this form of mining which also exposes local residents to a higher risk of serious health problems.
Co-author Dr. Emily Bernhardt, of Duke University, explains that "The chemicals released into streams from valley fills contain a variety of ions and trace metals which are toxic or debilitating for many organisms, which explains why biodiversity is reduced below valley fills." The authors provide evidence that mine reclamation and mitigation practices have not prevented the contaminants from moving into downstream waters.
The authors also describe human health impacts associated with surface mining for coal in the Appalachian region, including elevated rates of mortality, lung cancer, and chronic heart, lung and kidney disease in coal producing communities.
"Over the last 30 years, there has been a global increase in surface mining, and it is now the dominant driver of land-use change in the Central Appalachian region," says Dr. Keith Eshleman also of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. "We now know that surface mining has extraordinary consequences for both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Notwithstanding recent attempts to improve reclamation, the immense scale of mountaintop mining makes it unrealistic to think that true restoration or mitigation is possible with current techniques."
Ironically, this comes on the heels of the Obama administration's decision to approve a new MTR permit in West Virginia. Perhaps the EPA doesn't believe that blowing up mountains harms mountains?
UPDATE: I'm listening to a conference call with some of the scientists who wrote the paper. It's a real horror show.
The forests that get cleared store tons of carbon; the vegetation it's replaced with doesn't. So there's a climate change connection (aside from the obvious coal connection).
Blowing all this stuff destroys the landscapes ability to absorb rainfall, which leads to increased flooding downstream. And those effects are expected to persist for centuries.
The industry claims it's "replacing" headwater Appalachian streams, but you won't be surprised to hear that hydrologists find that claim absurd. The hydrology ends up different and the streams end up polluted with trace metals (poisoning those downstream). These trace metals are also associated with decline in invertebrate biodiversity.
Permits are considered individually, but multiple permits granted in the same watershed leads to additive effects that persist for decades after abandonment.
Concentrations of selenium in the water bioaccumulate in the food chain and effects are magnified. The fish become poisonous.
And of course the human toll: poisoned water leads to more deformities in babies and worse academic outcomes. Air quality is degraded, leading to respiratory diseases. And on and on.
God this is depressing. I wonder how Don Blankenship feels about it.
UPDATE 2: Now in Q&A with the scientists. One says, "this is the most heavily peer-reviewed paper I've ever published — one review was 18 pages long."
The scientists received no outside funding for this; they donated their time. One says the project was sparked by a request from NGOs.
They're calling for a moratorium on permits until there can be a "rational hearing" on the science. Many of them were new to the issue when they started this; all of them seem kind of shocked by how horrific it is and by how little attention it's gotten.
Asked about new permit just issued for Hobet 45 mine, Dr. Dennis Lemly says the water issue weren't addressed. "This is just business as usual."
One problem with permits: they only address valley fill area. But pollutants escape and many of their cumulative effects are felt downstream.
Asked: are there technological options available to deal with the water quality properly? Lemly: sure, it's just a matter of cost. Dr. William Schlesinger adds: when you bury a stream, it's gone. There's no replicating it.
Dr. Emily Bernhardt: part of impetus of the paper was to provide regulators with a comprehensive overview. Met with a small group from U.S. EPA to present findings.
Bernhardt: all the data mining companies and the WV DEP collect information on surface water, but much of the pollution is found beneath the surface in water tables.
To me, the most amazing part of all this — and clearly the scientists are amazed as well — is the fact that there's never been a comprehensive assessment of MTR impacts before. We're blowing up mountains and we have no idea what the consequences are! The mind boggles. It's like the whole country is just discovering Appalachia.


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Have to do a talk at Career Day at my kid's school & looking for ideas on how to make "computer programmer" sound cool to 8 year olds.
I did the same thing for my daughter's 1st grade class. I brought in an old computer and bunch of parts. I explained what each part does and let them touch them. This was a big hit! They'd never seen a computer's insides let alone been allowed to actually touch them!
I asked them some questions to dispel myths about computers: How many think computers are magic? (No magic) How many think computers are smart? (Nope; they are really dumb - they only do EXACTLY what you tell them), etc. It was very fun.
The teacher told me that it's the first one where the kids didn't seem bored. The first thing I did was have everybody leave their desk and sit in circle - the kids liked that. If you have fun so will they.
Similar to @Boojiboy, I used to do this quite a bit, and what I found successful was to do two things:
1) I brought in some old computer equipment for them to see and play with. I showed the evolution of disks with a 3380 mountable disk pack from my co-op days, one of the orange rings from inside of said disk pack to pass around, and then 8", 5.25", and 3.5" floppies. Talk about the relative sizes and what types of things they could store on each in terms their age group understands (music, videos, etc.) vs CDs and DVDs they recognize. You could also show USB sticks and/or SD media.
2) As mentioned, I relate programming to video games. You can ask if they like playing games and what games they like. To supplement this discussion, I also bring in older units (Atari 2600, Intellivision, Odyssey) and a newer one to compare graphics. If time allows, I let some play with the old games. It has rare that many of the kids have seen these old games, much less experience them, and they absolutely cannot believe the quality of the graphics. It gets a laugh every time. You can then segue the discussion into the need to take related classes in math and science. Video games are certainly the hook to hold their interest, though.
Best of luck! It is a good thing you are doing.
8 year olds could be a tough crowd unless you happen to write video game software. If you happen to have some cool visual aide, like a Lego Mindstorm, you could get some interest there (and I can make it do whatever I want...).
Personally, I found this [1] presentation by Chris Sells to be truly excellent...though it is geared at High School, what do I want to do with my life, sorts.
[1] http://www.sellsbrothers.com/news/showTopic.aspx?ixTopic=2179_why the lucky stiff, a crazy genius from the Ruby community, has a great project called Hackety Hack [1] that teaches kids 13 and up to code by making it really easy to accomplish advanced cool stuff. Just a few lines of code lets you build a YouTube downloader or a blog or a chat room with your friends.
The insight is that what gets them going is to show them what stuff they can actually make. I've seen people have a lot of luck with Arduino [2] and other physical computing projects: getting to actually make something blink or beep or spin goes a long way. And, of course, robots will always be appealing. If you can do a demo where they you get a volunteer to write a few lines that do something spectacularly visible or audible, I bet you'd get some of them hooked.
In summary: you want to show them something awesome and get the to think: I could make that too.
[1] http://hacketyhack.net/Show them some cool things you can do with programming. It doesn't have to be SOAP and XML and boring CRUD webapps.
It can be fun: Coincidentally, just a couple of days ago I covered some potential entry points for kids in programming on my weblog (which includes some of the responses here, plus some). If you're interested, see Getting your kids involved in programming [1])
That's why it struck a nerve with me.
[1] http://www.codeodor.com/index.cfm/2008/10/13/Getting-your-kids-involved-in-computing/2555tell them what you really do, tell them what makes you proud of what you do - don't pretend that your job is glamorous or dangerous or 'cool' or whatever, if it's not.
in other words, don't lie to them - they're children!
chances are, the software you write is used by real people to do things that even 8-year-olds understand as "important" or "useful"; concentrate on that
if it doesn't then tell them that you like to solve puzzles and investigate mysteries, and programming gives you boatloads of these things on a daily basis ;-)
and please report back here what happened!
Visited my son's second grade class for career day. Took my 3 year old daughter with me (since I was home anyway). Told them all about developing a driving simulator and all the studies you could do with it, how you could crash and not get hurt, etc. First question after I was done talking: What's your favorite color? Second question: what's her favorite color? Ah, well...
(No. I am not making this up.)
So the answer is...don't be discouraged if their attention wanders. They're 8 years old.
Teach her Logo. Kids get a kick out of that and it really explains programming and what is done well.
Don't try to make it sound cool -- at least, don't try to make it sound cool to everyone in the whole class, because it's doubtful you'll succeed.
Your challenge should be to make it sound cool to the one or two kids in the class who might find it interesting and might have the aptitude, but might be discouraged because of peer pressure, or because their parents want them to be lawyers, etc. If you can reach those kids and convince them to get and stay interested in programming, then you will have succeeded.
Tell them Bill Gates is a computer programmer and is a billionaire.
You don't need to make programming cool enough for kids, you need to make kids cool enough for programming.
Show some demos from Greenfoot! The kids might not understand the code but with some interaction, they'll get the idea.... Here's an introductory article [1]
For the uninitiated, here is a quote:
[1] http://www.ociweb.com/jnb/jnbAug2008.htmlGreenfoot is a joint project funded by Sun Microsystems and implemented at the University of Kent at Canterbury (UK) and Deakin University, Melbourne (Australia). The goal is to target students in the pre-teen years and older by providing a development environment which is both engaging and flexible. [snip] Although Greenfoot uses the same UML as BlueJ to clearly show the object oriented design of each scenario, its true power resides in object visualization. It greatly lowers the bar for building graphical applications in Java; this is important because the quick positive feedback inspires students to work with the code more.
Several years ago when my daughter was in 2nd or 3rd grade, I used the Lego Mindstorm robotics kit to introduce the students to programming. I started the demonstration with a simple robot that moved in a straight line until it ran into something, then I lead them through some questions on what additional "features" we could add. I then changed the logic on the robot to do things like back-up and change direction when it ran into an obstical, and stop if it detected it was going to run off the edge of the table.
The kids seemed to enjoy the demo and they did ask some questions about the robot and how I made it work.
Make your presentation visual and colorful. Stress that it's easy to get started with programming and give them the idea that they don't have to wait until they're older and have 20 years of school to do cool stuff. Kids are always being told that they can do things "when you're older". Showing them that they have the power to create right now will blow them away.
Depending on how much time you have, set up some templates and create a new web page on the fly using their suggestions. You gotta control that though. Imagine taking input from a room full of PMs with ADD all of whom just came from lunch at Starbuck's on "free extra shot" day. It could get out of hand fast.
If you want to do hardware, bring in a box of parts, explain each one and assemble a PC in front of them. At the end boot from a Linux live distro so they see the splash screen come up and think "That was easy!" If you can customize the splash screen to say "Hi, Ms. Crabapple's Class!" they'll think you're a god.
Key points: make it visual and keep it moving.
I would say do anything but screaming on the room humping like a monkey something like developers, developers, developers! I don't think that work for kids.
Seriously, we don't have career day in Brazil, but if I could I would say that I have a profession like anyone else, that there is no magic, it's boring sometimes, it's nice other days because I like it.
And I would remember them that there is a life besides computer. I'm quite scared with kids these days that don't remember anything else than hanging around in the Internet instead of playing outside while they can.
Talk about video games.
How about telling the truth?
Sometimes it really is cool to be a programmer. Sometimes, you get to solve a problem in an interesting way. You get to stand on the shoulders of luminaries such as Alan Turing, Jon Von Neumann and yes, even Bill Gates. Other times, it's frustrating as hell. Sometimes you have to deal with corporate B.S. Occasionally you may get laid off. Children need to know the whole story - not just a fairy tale about the games industry. Otherwise how can they make informed decisions about their future careers? Tell it like it is, MaksimK, and good luck to you.
Kids know about Hackers, they appear in movies and cartoons and stuff like that. Tell them you are a "good" hacker, that should be easy to understand, and enticing to their imaginations too
Note: At the age of 8, enticing their imagination is more than enough, you can't explain to them about the intricacies within the 10 minutes you'll get.
For those that have read The Last Lecture [1], you could show the 3d programming environment,Alice, here [2]. I'm not new to programming but still think 3d animation is pretty neat.
[1] http://www.thelastlecture.com/Try to relate the subject to things that kids think are cool, like iPods and Playstation. Show them that these objects are in fact little computers, and that it is a programmers job to create all the fun stuff you can do with them.
I remember being blown away when I heard that the first assignment at the first math course at university was to compress sound and actually make mp3-like files using mathematical algorithms. "Create mp3's?!? You mean you can actually use this math thingy to create something cool and useful? Now why didn't we learn THAT in high school?!?"
Although I don't have too much personal experience with it, I have read that the Alice Project [1] is a good place to start with children. It was created by Randy Pausch (who's life story is pretty amazing) to teach children the fundamentals of programming in a fun way, rather than making it seem like a tedious task. They will have enough time to learn difficult concepts and languages when they are older!
[1] http://www.alice.orgTell them that programming is about creativity and freedom . There is a wide variety of things you can create. You're not limited to a bunch of task, tools or branches. You can combine programming with other hobbies like gaming, music, video, etc. if you're lucky. Tell them you'll have the opportunity to learn something new throughout your career - it will get never boring.
Programmer can be cool because they have the opportunity to create something cool.
There's a language designed for kids. Turtle, I think it's called.
You probably won't get a serious "im going to start now and be a programmer" impact, but I think its important to nail the basic fundamentals of it
in essence, you: the human, give a structured sequence of tasks to the computer and it performs them.
lots of tasks make computer do really cool things
They may not start to utilise it immediately, but the thing is it will put the ideas in there to mull over which may encourage them to be more aware of it later.
Thats basically how I got started, black and white screen hello-world basic apps. At the time I didn't see much point and it was stupid, but years later I was getting out a book from the library with 2000 line basic programs that were somehow games when you got them to run ( Interestingly enough, the whole time and multiple occurrences I got that book out, I never understood exactly how they worked, or even managed to get any of them to run! )( yes, I was one of those strange children whom hung out in the non-fiction section )
Eventually one day they may wish to explore programming, and its important when that happens they have access to a programming environment.
( Until late high school I didn't consider programming even as a job, it was merely something entertaining people did! )
let them do python


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Persia The Thousand Nation of the Persian Empire (which has or will soon descend upon you) Modern day Iran | |||||
| |||||
Motto: For Shah and Country | |||||
Capital | Tea-ran(So far away!!) | ||||
Official language(s) | Old Persian, Median, Parthian, old Norse | ||||
Government | Imperial | ||||
Cyrus the Great, Darius the Great, Xerxes the Great (Each formerly Princes of Persia prior to signing deals with Sony Playstastion) | |||||
National Treasure | The Sands of Time | ||||
National Hero(es) | Cyrus the Great, Darius the Great, Xerxes the Great, Generally anyone Great is from here or has passed through here | ||||
Declaration of Independence | Always | ||||
Currency | Sun Blotting Arrows | ||||
Religion | Mazdaism | ||||
Major exports | Sun-Blotting Arrows, Battle Rhinos, Battle Elephants, Massive Battleformations, Poets, Poetry, Honour, Klingons and Klingon Culture | ||||
Major imports | Madness, Blasphemy, Old guys with Beards, Racism, Earth and Water in a pit. |
"Quality rugs!"
"I am the God of Hell Fire..and I bring you Fire"
Persia, the ancient name for Iran, is a country spanning from East Europe to West Asia, from Middle-earth to North Africa and Central Asia. Nowadays it is a popular grinding spot for those playing the Prince of Persia, having large scale PvP combat with nearby nations on a regular basis. Persia is historically renowned for descending upon and kicking the ass of every country they fought, in any time period. It may have defeated the Romans, the Bulgars, the Macedonians, the Byzantines, the Sumerians, the Assyrians, the Lydians, the Phoenicians, the Scythians, the Armenians, the Babylonians, the Arabs, the Turks, the Indians, the Uzbeks, the Afghans, the Tajiks, the Kazakhs, the Israelis, the Egyptians,the Lybians and the Greeks on many occasions (including once during a Van Halen concert). But we'd rather not note this because we like to distort history to gratify our incessant needs to identify ourselves with civilizations like Greece and Rome that we really have nothing to do with.
This ancient Middle Earth state now known as Iran. Ancestral home for Miley Cyrus, Billy Bob Cyrus, Freddie Mercury and former US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. Persia is always considered a byword for luxury and sophistication. It is also extremely nationalist. During it's long and ancient history it was trashed by Alexander the Great, conquered in the name of Islam in the 7th century, mangled by the Mongols in the 13th century and finally messed around with by the British and Russians in the 19th-20th centuries and yet the country still remains more or less within it's same borders it always did. You just don't fuck with a country that maintains this level of nationalism.
Cats[edit | edit source]
Let's get the felines done first. Persian cats. OK?
Other Cats[edit | edit source]
Tabby cats. Yep, Persians breed those too.
Carpets[edit | edit source]
The original magic carpet was Persian. Special offers available.
Most Common Phrases Amongst Persians[edit | edit source]
- Long time, no siege!
- This isn't blasphemy, this is madness!
- Our God-King, is a kind God.
- It's OKAY (they emphasize the K)
- Nothing baba!
- Let's go baba!
- While listening to techno: This is the best music.
- No, no, no, this is Hugo Boss, not that cheap shit Calvin Klein.
- Im Pehhrrrsian... Like de cat.. Meoowwww
- Ozr mikham, Oar you... Eiraaani-an?!
- Ay Baba!
- I am going to take a 'chort' (usually after kabab koobideh and doogh)
How You Know If Your Friend Is A Persian[edit | edit source]
- If he claims he is the real Aryan
- If he is constantly telling you how to do your job, regardless of the fact that YOU are the boss.
- If they or anyone in her immediate family drives a BMW or a Benz
- If he wears lots of gold jewelry and the same track suit everyday.
- If they lives in Beverly Hills.
- If they has a father, uncle or a cousin, and all or one of which at least goes to Zoorkhaneh everyday.
- If they has a mom who practices archery.
- If he/she ever freed Jews from captivity in Babylon.
- If he/she has the Iranian flag with a lion and the sun on it rather than the one with the onion on it.
- If he/she takes you to an Iranian restaurant and talks about their 20,000 year history. The number surprisingly grows each time you go to the restaurant.
- He/she has an uncle who plays Takhteh-nard almost everyday.
- Because of his/her accent, he emphasizes the letter K and C in every word and he starts words with 2 consonants at the beginning with es. (example, es-tart the car, es-mile at the camera, why doesn't this car estart? fuk i hate this fukking machine.)
- Most i and y vowels sound like e when he's speaking. Can I have some vater peeleez? Eez it ok if I kan go to deh vashroom?
- If his/her sentences end with an upward inflection (like a question) he/she's most likely from Esfahan.
- If he/she is extremely great at flirting and getting with the opposite sex.
- If he/she takes off shoes inside the house and will hang you if you don't take yours off in his/her house.
- If he/she eats Ghormeh Sabzi like a starving Jew who just survived the Holocaust and came upon some green edible gold.
- If his/her mom cooks pasta like rice, and insists she's doing it the right way.
- If his/her mom goes to more than 3 'mehmoonis' a month
- If his/her parents complain how they're so poor, but have a Benz and BMW
History[edit | edit source]
Persians are considered to be related to the people of Norse. They have shown their racial superiority by taking over the known world a few times over the course of history. Also note that the Persian Empire has served well as a model for the Klingon domination of the universe.
After a few thousand years of world domination the Persians had received enough gold from their One-Thousand-Nation subjects to buy their own fast food empire, called Mcdonalds which again, had modeled it's world domination policies on the methods and theories of the Persian Empire. Their venues soon became a popular dining spot among Persians and Spartans alike.
Unfortunately, the Greek's jealousy towards the Persians became too great and they attempted to push the city of Ion, which was well within the Persian borders, to to revolt against the Persian Government, which ultimately resulted in the Ionian Revolt. The revolt was quickly put down by the Persian God-King.
The action of the Greeks of course did not fair well with the Persians and they decided to teach Greece a lesson they would not soon forget. This resulted in the Persians holding a referendum on the issue. Ultimately the decision was made to take over Greece in order to turn it into a giant dump for leftover grease from their new fast food giant, Mcdonalds. This indeed, is where the country of Greece gets it's current name, as well as the hit film that followed. The misspelling occurred at a later time when Herodotus, the biggest writer of fiction of all time, decided to see if he could fictionalize the name of his native country; So he did, from Grease to Greece, and it stuck! (no pun intended)
After a hardcore battle, with much pirouetting and slow-motion, as well as Battle Rhinos and for some reason, Goblins, the Persians emerged victorious. The Spartans received only 299 casualties including their primative so called king Leonidas (see AAAAAAAAA), whose downfall occurred after one of their most homosexual soldiers was bribed to betray them with pornographic spreads of Hard Gay. The story of this battle was shown by a movie titled 300 directed by a Jew who portrays the Persians in a very sympathetic light.
Ultimately though, Greece fell and their two strongest states Athens and Sparta were burnt down to the ground. According to historians, this was by far the greatest ownage of all time where finally the boy-loving and homosexual Greeks were subdued for the first time, in turn doing the world a favor. Prince of Persia or PoP, succeeded Xerxes.
PoP, being even smarter than his father, and being sickened by the homosexual habits of the Spartans and Greeks in general, decided to leave Sparta and invade India. During the sacking of the Dhali Lhama's palace, PoP managed to steal the Sands of Time and caused a series of anomalies in the space-time continuum that led to him becoming his own son. He soon became emo, and played annoying repetitive music while wearing black and cutting himself with the Dagger of Time over and over again.
Persians conquests, mights and reign[edit | edit source]
- Conquest of Greece: King of Kings, King Xerxes ran over Spartans and smoked Athens in 554 BC. Leonidas' body was the property of the Persian government for 300 years in order to exhibit the complete ownage of the Greeks and Spartans alike, and their primitive so called "king".
- Conquest for Southern Egypt: 553 BC. It took a 500 beer gun and several Persian Cats to defeat the Pharaohs and their ultimately drunk Egyptians army.
- The Conquest of Yor-Mum: 69 BC. Like you didn't see that one coming??!!??
Others reign, conquest and mights will appear later.
More fun facts about Persia to follow.


text:
SBC was founded in 1952 by the late Satmar Rebbitzen Feigy Teitelbaum, of blessed memory, in Mrs. Kahan's kitchen. Satmar was then a small community, most of whom were refugees from the Holocaust, many having lost their families at Auschwitz. What started out in that kitchen has grown to be a major component of the Jewish social service safety net that the entire Jewish community takes for granted.
These weren't ladies of leisure and there wasn't time for meetings to come up with a motto. But when the time the first phone call was answered with "Satmar Bikor Cholim, Ken' Ich Helfen? (can I help you?), the phrase stuck. It has served as their guide ever since.
At first Rebbitzen Tietelbaum and Mrs. Kahan cooked all the meals and brought them via subway to the hospitals of Manhattan. In those days they would also feed the patients. With time others volunteered, and the mission expanded to provide food for family members as well.
Some hospital may have limited kosher food in their cafeterias, but the hours are typically limited hours, and this is not an option for the Sabbath. Read more...